They reached the end of the alley, and Megan held up a fist. They all ground to a halt, and Wolfgang panted for air as Megan stepped out of the alley and cast a quick glance each way. Then she beckoned for them to follow her to the right.
The blocks faded into a pounding mixture of pedestrians and muddy snow. They dashed across one street after another, narrowly avoiding collisions with cars as horns blared and Russians shouted. Wolfgang wanted to count his steps and speculate on how much farther they had to run, but he couldn’t spare the energy. Ivan could be a mile behind, or only a few yards, and Wolfgang doubted that his fourth encounter with the irate SVR officer would go as favorably as the first three.
“There!” Megan pointed to a tall, square building with a glass face, only two hundred yards distant.
Pedestrians milled about outside as taxicabs pulled to and from the curb. Wolfgang couldn’t read the Cyrillic lettering mounted to the top of the building, but he prayed Megan was right.
Wolfgang patted Koslov on the back. “Almost there, Koslov. Keep moving!”
The exhausted scientist stumbled and coughed, and Megan slowed a little. They couldn’t simply barge into the train station without drawing attention, and Wolfgang wondered suddenly if there would be customs or security to process through. He knew that many European countries, specifically those in the European Union, allowed for open travel between countries without the fuss of immigration or customs, but Russia wasn’t a member of the EU, and neither was Belarus.
No time to worry about it now.
Megan held the door, and they slid inside, Koslov still panting like a winded elephant. The train station’s main lobby was immense, crowded with pedestrians and rolling suitcases, and noisy enough to drown out both Koslov’s gasping and Wolfgang’s quiet remarks.
“You have the tickets?”
Megan nodded. “The train for Minsk leaves in ten minutes. Make Koslov hurry.”
She hurried across the room to the ticket counter and presented her phone with three digital tickets queued up and ready to go. There was a brief hesitation from the ticket clerk, and he glanced toward Wolfgang and Koslov, then motioned toward a rail line and resumed staring at his cell phone.
Megan beckoned them on, and they wound their way across the lobby, down an escalator, through a set of glass doors, and onto the main platform of the station. The warmth of the train lobby vanished as the air filled with the screech of metal on metal and a chorus of shouts from conductors and travelers. Trains sat at random on multiple tracks, sheltered by a giant glass dome laden with snow. Megan glanced at her ticket, then scanned the trains. She pointed at one, and they hurried forward again. Koslov held his side, and Wolfgang glanced over his shoulder.
There was no sign of Ivan. Not yet.
Megan slid to a stop at the entrance of a car, where a disheveled conductor dressed in a thick woolen coat was busy scanning digital tickets with a plastic gun. Megan presented her phone again, then motioned to Koslov and Wolfgang. The conductor shrugged.
“Stay here,” Wolfgang whispered.
Koslov looked up, panic shining in his eyes. Wolfgang gave his arm a squeeze, then hurried across the platform. Mounted against the wall twenty yards away was a small, blue metal box emblazoned with the gold emblem of the Pochta Rossii—the Russian mail service.
Wolfgang dug the envelope out of his pocket and felt to ensure that the flash drive was inside. He hesitated a moment.
What if Ivan is one of them?
He held the envelope and rubbed the bulge of the thumb drive.
He’s not. I just know.
Wolfgang slid the envelope into the mailbox, then ran back to the train. The conductor waved him in with an impatient grunt, and Wolfgang hurried down the aisle. Megan sat in the back of the car, holding a newspaper over her face while Koslov sat next to her, chewing his fingernails. He saw Wolfgang and started to speak, but Megan grabbed his arm and shot Wolfgang a frantic look over the top of the paper. Wolfgang turned to his right and looked through the train window.
Ivan Sidorov barreled down the platform toward the train.
Without stopping to think, Wolfgang sat down on a bench seat and turned his back to the window, bending down and pretending to tie his shoe. Shouts rang out from the platform as the train’s doors slid shut. Wolfgang heard Ivan’s now-familiar voice demanding answers from a transit employee on the platform. He looked over his shoulder and saw Ivan holding out an iPad with photos of Wolfgang displayed on the screen. The employee gave it only a casual glance, then shrugged and walked away as the train lurched forward.
Wolfgang grinned and looked away, leaning back against the glass. A moment later, the wheels of the train caught on the tracks, and they slid out of the station in a rush. Wolfgang’s last view of Ivan was of the big Russian throwing the iPad at one of his companions, then turning toward the escalator like a raging bull, once again thwarted.
The train shook as it gained speed, and Wolfgang turned to Megan. She lowered the paper over her lap and glanced at the fading train station, then turned to Wolfgang. Megan grinned, then broke into a soft chuckle. Wolfgang joined her and leaned back in the seat. For a moment, they just laughed as though they were swapping some sort of old inside joke. Wolfgang still felt cold from the bite of the Russian wind, but in the warmth of Megan’s laugh, his numb fingers and aching legs didn’t matter anymore. For the moment . . . all was well.
And then Koslov leaned forward, his eyes wide and strained, and whispered the word that brought that moment to an end. “Katya?”
12
It took nine hours to reach Minsk. Most of those hours
